Undervalued Auto: Nick Markakis

Speaking of the Orioles, I was browsing eBay tonight, looking at card auctions that were within a few minutes of ending, and looking for good deals. I was very surprised to see a 2008 SPX autographed card of Nick Markakis with a starting bid of $3.95 and no bids yet with three minutes left in the auction. I put in a bid for a few bucks more than that, fully expecting that someone would snipe this auction and win it for about $10. Amazingly, I won the auction and I’ll be getting the card for only $3.95 (and $2 for shipping) – less than the price of many packs! Here’s the card that I won:

I knew that Markakis was underrated, but I didn’t realize that he was so severely underrated that his autographed cards were going for under $4. Check out his stats over the last two years:

All that from a guy who’s still only 24 years old. Can you imagine the hype if he was playing in New York, Boston, or Chicago? If I were building a MLB team from scratch, there are few players that I’d rather have than Nick Markakis!